


SUMMARIES: The Way of All Flesh

by supaslim



Series: The Way of All Flesh [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-19 02:29:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17592920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supaslim/pseuds/supaslim
Summary: Summaries of each installment of my series"The Way of All Flesh."This is ENTIRELY spoilers for my fics, intended for those who want to refresh their memories without rereading tens of thousands of words.





	1. Wight

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a fic! Each chapter is a summary of a fic in my ["The Way of All Flesh" series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/895551). This exists so people can refresh their memories without rereading tens of thousands of words of fic, especially since I tend to have significant breaks between publishing fics.
> 
> I would love for you to read the series itself, rather than these summaries, if you haven't already!

**WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD**

[Read the actual fic here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130511)

 

 

 

 

 

The story begins during the events of the game. The Courier is cruel and manipulative, doing what he pleases when he pleases, but he does enough that benefits the Mojave and wears a convincing enough mask that most of the world thinks he's a pretty great guy. Only his companions know better.

The Battle for the Dam is approaching and the Courier won't commit and tell his companions who he's supporting, which makes Boone- who is already mistrustful of him- even more suspicious. The Courier announces he's going to the Fort, and he's taking Boone with because he knows Boone doesn't trust him.

They go to the Fort, where the Courier goes into the hidden bunker. The earth rumbles, he comes out, and he and Boone leave. On the road, the Courier expresses an affinity for night stalkers. He also suggests that he, Boone, and Vulpes Inculta have a lot in common.

Meanwhile, Vulpes Inculta also grows increasingly suspicious of the Courier after some very unsettling encounters with him- including the fact that the Courier is looking for Ulysses, insinuations that he has met Joshua Graham, and the disappearances and murders of several Frumentarii- and he begins following him and spying on him personally.

The Courier does some adventuring without Boone for a while, and on one trip he disappears entirely after picking up the Sierra Madre's radio signal. He reappears at the Lucky 38 several weeks later, haggard and restless, having been to the Sierra Madre, the Big Empty, and the Divide, where he found and killed Ulysses without firing any missiles.

When the Courier goes out adventuring alone again, Arcade tells Boone that the Courier is a cannibal and convinces Boone he should follow him and watch him. While doing this, he is approached by Vulpes Inculta, who witnessed the Courier's solo journey to the Sierra Madre bunker, his return from the Big Empty, and his entrance and exit from the Divide, where he put Ulysses' head on a stake. Vulpes suggests a pact: that in the upcoming battle they both focus on killing the Courier, because it is clear he's not going to help either of their sides.

The Courier kills everyone in the Brotherhood of Steel bunker, and Veronica and Cass leave. The Battle approaches; the Courier tells Boone he hopes he and Vulpes have spoken and are getting along, because Vulpes would need Boone's support in coming days.

The Battle comes. Boone is with the NCR vanguard. Arcade is in power armor and fighting with the other Enclave remnants. Lily, Rex, and Raul are missing, as is the Courier. As the fighting commences, the Courier suddenly appears on the west side of the dam with a horde of camouflaged night stalkers that begin killing both NCR and Legion troops. Seeing the Courier, Vulpes inadvertently leads a charge across the Dam. The Courier retreats into a gulch where he talks to Lanius. Vulpes climbs onto the cliffs above on one side with a sniper rifle, and Boone climbs the other side. The Courier sees the snipers and uses Lanius as a human shield, so Vulpes kills Lanius, and Boone immediately fires at the Courier. It's a head shot, but the bullet is deflected in a spray of sparks. The Courier activates a stealth boy and vanishes.

An army of Securitrons appears and ceases the fighting, securing victory for an independent New Vegas. General Oliver is thrown into the Grand Canyon. Suddenly, something jabs Boone and he blacks out, drugged. When he wakes up, he's loosely tied to a still-unconscious Vulpes, and they are both wearing bomb collars and PipBoys with a recorded message from the Courier urging them to come find him in the Divide.


	2. That We Become

**WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD**

[Read the actual fic here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13035702)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boone and Vulpes are tied together and wearing bomb collars and PipBoys, courtesy of the Courier. They are still in the hills above the Dam, immediately after the Battle. The Courier explains via a message on the PipBoy that the collars will detonate if they get too far apart from each other, if they're tampered with, or if one of the men dies. If they want the collars removed, they need to find the Courier in the Divide.

Vulpes is in shock. He tries to get across the Dam and back to the Fort, nearly detonating the collars and getting killed by the Securitrons that guard it. He's stopped by Boone, who forces him to come to nearby Boulder, where the NCR already has a camp set up to tend to the wounded. Legion survivors are lurking in the abandoned buildings, staying just out of sight. Vulpes recovers enough to agree with Boone that they need to find the Courier and get the collars removed, then kill him. Vulpes tells Boone that he knows where the Divide is, and he realizes that the Courier is the courier that blew it up.

In the night, a Frumentarius hidden among the NCR survivors brings Vulpes and Boone weapons, as well as a Legionary who was there when the Fort fell. The Legionary tells Vulpes that Lucius and the Praetorian guard deserted, and Caesar was confirmed dead. Vulpes kills him for deserting his post.

Vulpes and Boone travel westward, where they briefly meet the Lonesome Drifter, then south, where they rest in the Sierra Madre bunker that Vulpes followed the Courier to before the Battle. There, Vulpes tells Boone about the monster that was the Malpais Legate, Joshua Graham, and that he thinks he is still alive. He suspects the Courier broke him and turned him into something new and more horrible, and was planning to do the same to them.

They continue traveling, looping through Nipton. The corpses from Vulpes' lottery are still there, but so are mysterious renegade soldiers from both the NCR and Legion in Powder Ganger uniforms. Boone and Vulpes try to escape but are spotted by snipers, and end up burning down city hall and most of the town to cover their escape. On the way out, they literally run into Picus, a Frumetarius deserter, who refuses to give Vulpes any information, and eventually rebukes both him and the Legion. Vulpes kills him, and he and Boone escape into the desert.

Vulpes is deeply rattled by Picus' betrayal, and finally tells Boone that Picus had defied the Legion but seemed to be protecting Lucius. He also explains that Lucius is now the de facto leader of the Legion, with Caesar and Lanius dead.

They press on to the Divide. Vulpes grows more reticent, and makes Boone nervous. Once they reach the ruins of Ashton, they are greeted by ED-E, being remotely controlled by the Courier, who urges them onward to find him deeper in the wreckage, by the missiles. As they travel, the Courier speaks to them about the changes he underwent, and how he's grown into so much more than the weak man he used to be, before Ashton blew up.

Soon after venturing into the sandstorm outside the missile silo, they are attacked by Marked Men. Both Vulpes and Boone are grievously injured; Vulpes uses their only StimPaks to heal Boone, leaving him with a very bad leg injury. They hunker down in a locked building to give it as much time to heal as they can. They sometimes hear gunfire that puts Vulpes on edge. When they emerge, the corpses of the Marked Men they killed are missing.

Walking is difficult for Vulpes, but he refuses to slow down, and is paranoid of the Courier-controlled ED-E following them. He asks Boone to remember their conversation in the Sierra Madre bunker.

They encounter a pair of deathclaws in the ruins, and barely escape them. In the process, Vulpes tears his stitches and his wound reopens. He sacrifices their duffel bag of ammo and supplies to kill one of the deathclaws, and they escape with the second deathclaw still alive. They both recognize they probably won't survive this mission, but they're hell bent on killing the Courier. They realize the surviving deathclaw is following them from a distance.

Boone helps Vulpes onward. They spot a Marked Man camp below them, and they manage to clear the camp. Vulpes is feverish and distracted, focused on gunfire in the distance. They descend to the camp and discover the only food available is human flesh, which they are forced to eat to survive, to the Courier's delight. Boone scavenges ammunition and water off the dead Marked Men.

They stay there for the night. In the night, Boone hears unseen creatures come and drag away the corpses of the Marked Men, but the deathclaw never appears. They move on when it's light, after Boone finds some pipe Vulpes can use as a crutch. They wander into a choke point, with Marked Men patrolling above. Vulpes leads Boone through, slowly sneaking in the shadows. A ruckus behind them distracts the guards- presumably, the deathclaw that's been following them- and they run while they have the chance.

There comes a point where Vulpes just can't walk anymore, and Boone is forced to sit with him behind some cover, waiting until he recovers enough stamina to move. They fall asleep, and when Boone wakes up, the deathclaw is standing there watching them. It's badly injured and behaving strangely. There are no Marked Men in sight. Boone wakes up Vulpes, whose leg has gone numb, and they carefully move onward. The deathclaw follows, but doesn't come closer. Vulpes says there are invisible creatures all around them, but he's clearly sick.

They come to the Cave of the Abaddon. The deathclaw moves past them into the cave and is instantly killed by unseen creatures. Boone draws the line there and refuses to proceed, preferring death to that bullshit, saying that Vulpes is dying anyway and they probably wouldn't make it through if they tried. This angers the Courier, who activates the missiles and threatens to bombard the Mojave if they don't proceed. So threatened, Boone and Vulpes enter the cave.

It's pitch black, and Vulpes is flagging. They are surrounded by Burrowers, and the Courier's voice seems to come from every direction. The Courier sounds more and more unhinged the further into the Divide they go. Soon, they are attacked by the Burrowers, and though they survive, they lose most of their remaining weapons, and Vulpes falls unconscious. Boone carries him through the tunnel with difficulty, as he's beginning to feel the symptoms of radiation sickness. Vulpes comes to long enough to suggest that the Courier has been helping them from the shadows the entire time, and that as long as they put in effort, the Courier will see them through. The comment makes Boone think about how the deathclaw had seemed incapable of coming near them, and how the Burrowers had been inexplicably fended off when they were stronger and more numerous than he and Vulpes.

They come to the end of the tunnel, to a staircase spiraling up through a building that had stayed upright in the crush that had created the Cave of the Abaddon. They begin the arduous journey upward; Boone has to drag Vulpes up flight by flight. Vulpes comes to again when there is gunfire echoing up the stairwell from the Cave. He speaks in mixed English and Latin, desperate to keep moving and get away, because "he's coming."

They finally make it up the stairs, and they find a badly injured Courier waiting for them. He's on the verge of death. He has ED-E remove the bomb collars and is trying to convince the pair to join him, threatening that if they don't, they will have to find a way out of the Divide without his help this time, when he's shot in the head and killed. Instead of a brain, there seems only to be circuitry.

When Vulpes and Boone look for the killer, they see it was Joshua Graham, who had been close behind them all through the Divide. He was coming for the Courier for revenge, because the Courier corrupted the Dead Horses and returned him to his cruel roots, letting the Burned Man kill Salt-Upon-Wounds and crushing his psyche. He and Vulpes argue and nearly fight over who had the right to kill the Courier when the Courier speaks to them, saying there was enough of him for everyone, and he would "die again, and again, and again."

It's revealed that the Courier had his brain transplanted into Shadis, the night stalker matriarch, in the Big Empty, and he had been piloting his human body remotely. His new body is augmented with robotic arms and metal armor. He revels in his new body, saying that it suits him much better, and he finally looks like the predator he is. He and a horde of night stalkers un-stealth, and Boone realizes what Vulpes had known for a while- they were surrounded by night stalkers the whole time.

The Courier is angry with Graham for shooting him in the head, because he's tired of being shot in the head, and he always found Graham uninteresting. He pounces on Graham. Vulpes snaps and starts hacking apart the Courier's human body with a machete, while Boone just looks on, horrified. When he sees a metallic item mixed in with the human Courier's guts, he grabs Vulpes' arm, takes the gun-like object, and fires it at the Shadis-Courier. Instead of shooting a projectile, it transports him and Vulpes to the Sink in the Big Empty. He drags Vulpes under cover when the Courier teleports in behind them, proclaiming he doesn't need the transponder to get around anymore. Boone teleports himself and Vulpes again, and they end up at the crashed satellite at the Mojave Drive-In.

They are found and picked up by an unknown group of people with a cart, who provide first aid, but among themselves say that Vulpes' leg is untreatable. The pair are taken to Primm and dumped inside an empty house, under guard and drugged with Med-X.

Soon, Lucius, the former Praetorian, enters, and begins beating and questioning Vulpes. He says that he knows Vulpes killed Lanius, and that he was looking for Lucius. He also says that it was his people in Nipton, and his camp that Vulpes and Boone had destroyed. He suspects that Vulpes is making a power grab, trying to kill the competition and assume command. Vulpes is distraught, and argues that he only wanted to find Lucius so he could follow him. Lucius still doesn't believe him, says he's taking anyone (Legion, NCR, ANYONE) who is sick of the fighting and bloodshed back east to Flagstaff, and says that there is no place for Vulpes in the new order anyway. Broken, Vulpes asks what will be done with him then. Will they execute him, and baptise the new order in blood?

Lucius insists that the new society will be more peaceful than the Legion, but Vulpes calls him out on this, pointing out he's being tortured right now, and kindness doesn't feed hungry people and keep them from committing atrocities. He asks to be killed, or to be given a knife to kill himself, because he doesn't want to coexist with Lucius' new society. He knows he'll die soon from his injuries anyway, and death would be mercy.

Lucius refuses to execute Vulpes, instead drugging him with another dose of Med-X. He tells Boone he can't come east with them, but if he swears not to follow, he'll be allowed to live. Boone says he just wants to go home. The Praetorians release him, and he is armed and sent out into the desert, free.

Vulpes is taken to nearby Goodsprings and left in the care of Doc Mitchell, who says he has a chance at survival.


End file.
